Insights In Sound 200 – A Retrospective of 200 Episodes – S20 E10

0:14
So, I learned so much from those people. I got to watch Jimmyi Hendricks mix. You know, when things like that happen in
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your life and you and you absorb it, that beats any school. I I I joke with people. I said I I had to leave college
0:25
so I could get an education. And I’m so appreciative of some of the
0:31
mentors I had, you know, coming up that were patient enough with me when I was like, “What are you doing? Why are you
0:37
doing that? What are you doing there?” Because I absolutely learned my craft by stepping in it.
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And you know, ultimately, I think the working in film and television was
0:50
really that was my grad school. And I’ve always felt like, you know, I’m
0:56
I’m learning every day. I mean, I never I think that’s what happens when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re an autodidact
1:03
is like you just keep, you know, you keep the the lid open. So, you just keep filling it with knowledge and
1:12
I’m self-taught in everything I’ve done. So there are so so many elements of fear
1:19
in uh all of that, but there’s also some realization of kind of what you can do
1:26
and what you can’t do. I think that um there’s a difference between, you know,
1:32
jumping in and and saying yes and trying to figure out later and just trying to
1:37
act like you know everything. you you have to have some confidence that you can figure it out.
1:45
But I also know enough one to you know surround myself with people who know a lot more than I do. That doesn’t make me
1:53
any less than what I am. And that’s the one thing that most
1:59
people are very afraid of saying I don’t know. And I use it a lot because very
2:05
often I don’t know. But I know I will know very soon. I know that I’m gonna
2:12
come up with the answer. You start something and go like, “Wow, I really don’t know what I’m doing. I really
2:18
don’t know what it’s all about.” And all of a sudden, everything makes sense. You know, something clicks and next thing
2:24
you know, you come up with great ideas. It just happens like magic. So you don’t have to worry so much about
2:32
how you get your creative process started. You have to just be confident that things are going to be revealed to
2:38
you. So it’s like to me it’s like being a good husband. I mean you better be able
2:45
to figure out the answers cuz your wife’s going to throw something at you. You don’t you know I don’t I don’t know but I will figure it out. You know
2:52
that’s bottom line. I will figure it out. A lot of people go into whatever
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endeavor they do sort of unconsciously, right? Like they sort of they’re drawn to something and they just they don’t
3:04
think about it anymore. They just sort of do it, you know? I mean, that’s the same way most people live their lives. They get up every day, they do what they
3:10
do. A lot of times you don’t realize, you
3:16
know, what you’re what you’re doing, nor do you think about the long-term ramifications of what you’re doing.
3:25
I literally I had I packed up the truck. I had my Harley, all my SVTs, and all my
3:31
bases and a couple of boxes worth of clothes. What else do you need?
3:38
There was a a saying that someone in my undergrad used to say, but luck favors
3:43
the prepared mind. It’s not the music or the business. You
3:48
can learn the music, you can learn the business, you can figure those things out, but it’s relationships.
3:55
You just sort of develop this ability to kind of fit yourself into different situations. And
4:02
people are always asking me, “What was your plan? How did you get to where you
4:08
are?” I say, “Plan, what was Yeah, I don’t need no stinking plan.”
4:14
It just let it happen. It just opportunities came. you took advantage of them. I never thought long
4:20
range did. I mean, and as as a young person, 14, 15, 16, who’s just getting
4:26
into creating music, there’s no plan. It’s just I good at this. Let me
4:36
I think one of the most important things that I have learned just in life and looking back, man, it just plays over
4:42
and over and over is that it’s not always the doors that open for you that
4:48
are important. It’s those doors that are closed on you that send you somewhere else. And I look back at my dreams and
4:54
everything I wanted to do, great dream, but I wouldn’t change where
5:01
I’ve landed. You know, if you want something and you want to do it, I’m convinced that if
5:07
you’re passionate about it and you’re persistent,
5:12
I begged to get into that band. He would play all of these wonderful guitar parts
5:18
on the records and then um nobody was playing them live. So, I thought, you
5:24
know, somebody ought to be playing them live. And why not me? I know them. I’ve been to
5:29
every show. So, Music affects me so deeply and is for me
5:38
the most transporting and most magical of the arts.
5:43
It’s like there’s something um like intangible that musicians experience
5:49
when they perform live. I wore the Fitbit on stage. My heart
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rate was was pretty elevated. I mean, you’d expect it to be somewhat, right? But it literally followed the the tempo
6:01
map of the songs. It should always be about just giving
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your heart and soul and that the ego really has no place up there.
6:15
I mean, I see courses, you know, learn how to be a record producer. I think how
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I don’t think anyone can teach you that. It’s something you either you understand intrinsically or you don’t.
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And the only stamp I have is to try to make it sound as human and genuine as possible, as authentic as possible. And
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by the way, great records are not perfect records. They’re just great records. Thank you.
6:39
Sometimes there’s happy accidents, but I always find that if I approach a project with a goal and then that just helps me
6:46
get to the finish line, you know, in a very productive way.
6:52
I like the idea of not having a sonic sonic footprint myself for the purposes
6:58
of I think it’s more interesting. Bringing the artist vision to fruition
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is one of my taglines. Um what what they it’s it is like Matt said and I’ve always said and Sylvia
7:10
will say the same. It’s their record. It’s not my records. Um I just want to get the best out of
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them. Do the best out of them and get it on the hard drive, not on tape. and make it happen. And I’ll repeat
7:22
that. Bring the artist vision to fruition. Make it what they are.
7:29
I go by the philosophy that decisions are your friends and decisions provide foundations. So if you are working on a
7:36
on a song or a project and you leave all your decisions to the very end, you never really know what you have.
7:43
I love having new assistants because I like to teach them [ __ ] going into situations where you’re like, “Oh my
7:50
god, this is [ __ ] terrible, but watch this.” And you go on the talk back and
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you stroke the ego and you get a better performance out of the person, which otherwise the assistant might not
8:03
notice. What you’re thinking is, “Dude, that absolutely sucked. Now grow a pair
8:09
and do it properly which which translates into this was quite good but
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you know I think you can do better.
8:22
I think they think that you come to a big studio and the record’s going to sound great just cuz it’s a great studio. You know it’s not
8:28
there’s this thing called talent. Yes. Exactly. Uhhuh.
8:34
The whole thing we’re trying to do is capture some magic that makes somebody feel something.
8:42
To make somebody feel a certain way, to move them emotionally, to make them happy, to make them remember something
8:49
like it was yesterday, to remember a smell. And that doesn’t have anything
8:54
for me to do with the difference in how we recorded 30 years ago to how we
8:59
record now. It boils down to emotion. And and when you can do that, when you’ve got a good song and you can get
9:05
it, you can get the emotion in there, it doesn’t really matter how you get there.
9:11
I feel like there’s never a right or wrong. And I I’m always absorbing when I work with other producers their methods.
9:19
Every single person has some stroke of genius in them and you have to just tap
9:25
into it. Yeah. Okay. So, you’re a control freak. I am. I had like these beanie I’m like
9:32
thinking of this now. I had these beanie babies that I built a stage for and they each played an instrument and like at
9:37
the Jez Yeah. I absolutely I um in a good way I think and I’ve like really
9:44
been able to like be mature and like kind with it now.
9:51
He actually had the horns like right a lick over the bad note. Nice. It was sideways. A little sideways. You
9:57
know what I mean? He thought it was cool like that I was like outside you know and uh I was like it was a mistake and
10:04
he’s like no you know and one thing I learned from like George Duke he said it’s not really mistake it’s like the
10:10
very name if you plan to tell me you hit a note the very next note is the right note
10:16
it was nothing like I could have ever imagined because it was all just feel and I was like watch Miles go stop
10:25
find my job was to find the bottom because I’m certainly not going to get
10:30
in the way of Dave Holland, you know. Yeah. One of the best bass players in the
10:35
world ever. I had no idea what I was doing. Was pure intuition.
10:44
One day I got kicked awake by the head of the school. She looked at me and she
10:50
said, “Do you see who’s on the stage? you uh have to get up because you’re
10:56
snoring and you’re bothering Mr. Aaron Copelan who was conducting the
11:02
Rochester Philarmonic and our monitor engineer Jules Arts song
11:10
and immediately went over to him and said, “Hey Hunter, you want to do you want to mix monitors for Bob?” And
11:17
Hunter was Hunter was just basically, “Yeah, man. Put me in, coach.” And so he
11:22
just stood there and he just stood in front of the board and then Bob looked over and saw him and completely fell
11:29
over laughing. He could couldn’t he couldn’t finish the song. Literally the song felt completely apart.
11:36
He came to me and said, “I hear you wanting to learn how to play bass.” I was probably like 15 at the time. And I
11:42
said, “Yeah.” And he just walked me over to this closet, which was basically a hallway closet full of bases. And he
11:49
said, “Pick any bass you want. It’s yours for the weekend.
11:54
Most people who know me are very surprised to learn that I’m really an introvert. I’m not good at networking.
11:59
I’m not a good at picking up the phone. I do have the the odd occasion there
12:06
where the left brain starts thinking too much and tells you know Sure.
12:11
tells is telling the right brain what to do. Yeah. You have to I’ve had to learn how to fight that. But well, especially with Nixon.
12:18
Exactly. because it’s such a balance there of of tech and intuition in that sense and and that there’s that balance and
12:25
then there’s good old insecurity which I have more than a giant dosage of uh
12:31
I can’t believe that. Yeah. Well, I honestly think I I honestly think most creative people are
12:38
Oh, I success level doesn’t seem to matter. You know, I’ve spoken to some
12:44
highly successful people who have admitted to me that I’ve been doing this for, you know, x number of decades, and
12:50
yet I’m still deathly afraid that someone’s going to open my studio door one day and say, “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
12:57
No, I don’t need anyone to tell me that. I I keep questioning myself.
13:03
I walked out of what I thought was a tour with a job.
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He said, “I really want to share with you how to play in the pocket cuz you
13:16
are not doing it.” And okay. So I come over to his apartment and he said, “I
13:21
want you to meet Craig.” Sitting on his kitchen table is a drum machine that he has named Craig.
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And he taught me so much about playing like where the beat is, where the pocket
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is, where behind, where, you know, everything. He showed me so much. So
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there were so many people along the way that were like my brothers that really helped me and shared their
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knowledge with me. So I get a phone call one day. He goes,
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“Fix. I need you to come here. I got a problem with the console.” So I show up and he says, “Okay, here’s this, this,
13:59
this, and this, and this. I have to go.” As I’m doing that, finally we’re we’re in record. I look up and I look out
14:06
there and there’s a full orchestra, there’s a choir, there’s singers,
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they’re all miked up with goos and in booths and all this kind of [ __ ] And it was an Avon commercial. And then behind
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me was the client, the director, the producer. And I at that moment
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I basically blacked out. I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember how long I was there. I don’t remember
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anything about the rest of the day. I have literally I I remember doing this and going, “Holy
14:37
shit.” And then it was like the adrenaline took over. It did. And I remember I asked him the
14:42
next day. I said, “How’d it go?” He says, “It went really well.” In a meeting with Steve and I said,
14:48
“Steve, I’ve got this great idea.” And everyone knows at this point Steve
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Jobs was a tough cookie and he could be freaking brutal. And he looked at me, he
15:00
goes, “That’s the worst [ __ ] idea I’ve ever heard in my
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life.” And I looked at him, I went, “If that’s the worst idea you’ve ever heard,
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you’re the luckiest [ __ ] on this face of this planet.” Now,
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the other people in the room were like, “Oh my god, you know, he’s going to throw Steven Miller out of the room.”
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Steve just kind of looked slightly and I couldn’t believe he let it go. At the
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end of that meeting, I took the night flight back to New York. Got home. I’m saying hi to to my wife before she goes
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to work and FedEx. Oh, we got an early FedEx. I open I see it’s from Certino. I
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open it up and it says, “Dear Steve, upon further reflection, your idea is
15:54
still the stupidest [ __ ] idea I’ve ever seen. Love and respect, Steve.”
16:03
Where I got called into Paul’s office one day, Paul was there and all my bosses, the brass, all the brass. So, here’s the deal.
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We’re going to tear apart studio C. We’re going to make it into a Dolby Atmos room. Speakers in the walls and on
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the ceiling and all that. And then um once we’re done with that, you’re gonna
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mix a record in Dolby Atmos. And I said, “Okay,
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why?” And they went, “We don’t know, but that’s what they want us to do.”
16:34
I tell young musicians all the time when I’m in the studio producing them, I say, you know, you get the first verse is how
16:41
you teach people the song. Yeah. So that means on the second verse, you can’t just go in some other crazy
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direction, right? You can add a little something and augment it and build it, but don’t change the whole melody
16:53
because you have so much more to say because the payoff is the fact that by the time the second verse comes around,
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the audience is kind of familiar with the song and now they can join in. Yeah.
17:04
But if the whole thing is no, you sit there and watch me as I soar. You know
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what’ll happen then is well they just they start doing that.
17:16
You know for many film composers we all know this. You work on the biggest cues first. You nail those big ones. You make
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sure that you’ve got a good solid thematic foundation of what it is you’re doing.
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You know that’s interesting that you said that because nobody’s ever I never quite had that pointed out. Um,
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I’m also not conscious that I do that. So, that’s the best kind of skill to
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have, one that you actually is just inside of you. I have to give my dad
17:47
credit. I’m I’m I I’m very loyal. So, I I think the flip side, you know, the
17:54
Bside of the point you just made is is essentially loyalty. If I if I find
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somebody that’s that’s passionate and I see that their skill sets are growing,
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okay, and then I’m growing with them, I’m staying with them. I’m just going to stay with them. And I know there’s
18:12
there’s always a better tool around, you know, there’s always a faster horse and
18:17
but it’s not about that. You know, there’s this thing they call
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the Peter principle, uh, which I’m paraphrasing it, but it means that, uh, we all eventually rise to our own
18:30
personal level of incompetence. Exactly. And I think that’s very very common in the music products industry. Uh, you
18:38
know, I, Dave Smith, Tom Oberheim, Don Luca, we all started out because we
18:43
wanted to make a cool thing. We thought we had an idea to do that. And then of course we became um overrun with
18:51
business stuff and uh we thought uh and I I speak for myself. I thought, okay,
18:56
I’ve got to get better at this business stuff. And ultimately I discovered that I don’t want to do that. I’m not I’m
19:02
never going to be good at something I don’t like. Probably my biggest fear developing ADAT
19:08
was that I was sure that Sony or Yamaha, one of these major companies, that they
19:15
just had this design in their back pocket already. They just weren’t delivering it because they were going to
19:20
milk getting, you know, $100,000 for tape recorders as long as they could. So, I just imagined I mean, I I was
19:28
thrilled to work on it, but in my mind, I was sure we were just going to get slaughtered. We had nothing to lose. We
19:33
weren’t a tape recorder company. We could design it any way we wanted. We weren’t going to cannibalize any of our
19:38
sales. We were just going to show up one day and have a digital tape recorder.
19:45
I mean, electronically, you could do all these things to make something sound
19:50
smooth when really the performance wasn’t wasn’t all that great. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, there’s
19:56
that that’s other thing where you can make everything put everything in time,
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put everything in tune and and makes everything sound the same.
20:06
Yeah. And it’s nice if you can leave some of the the human quality in the music and
20:12
in all the instruments. I think
20:17
one of the things you do when you when you in sound check, you’re you’re getting a drum sound and you you have a
20:24
100,000 watt PA and you turn up a bass drum and it’s like God speaking to you
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and it’s just absolutely power and it’s just amazing. And so some
20:36
of the shows that I’ve been to have that bass drum of God and it’s impressive,
20:44
but it doesn’t have anything to do with the Well, it doesn’t have anything to do. It’s just in in hip-hop and R&B and
20:53
certain types of pop, yes, it should be there. But in other arenas,
20:59
I don’t want to hear a a massive bass drum when I’ve got like three mandolins on stage. It just doesn’t make any
21:06
sense. I don’t miss a bus. I don’t miss
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anything about these 18-hour days except the show, right? And I said when the lights went
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down, if my palms didn’t sweat, I wasn’t doing something right. because that’s
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that moment of clarity where everything has to be right. Everything clicks into place.
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I spent 20 years on the road before I spent the last 20 now 22 years here in
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the studio. Mhm. I think the 20 years on the road, first of all, I I’ve said this a 100
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times. You have to learn to do things fast. Yes. Um and you have to have you have to
21:48
deliver results quickly or you don’t have a gig. Mhm. I was touring with Jars of Clay. We
21:53
would play festivals. It’s a 52 input stage plot and you basically got one
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song to get 52 52 instruments from the stage in a mix in a PA you’ve never
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heard. The new people I get and the interns
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that I take on, it hasn’t changed. The trajectory is you start as an intern.
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Mhm. You know, unpaid intern only for about a month. I don’t I don’t believe in slave labor, but you have to do it usually an
22:24
internship for academic fulfillment. And it’s kind of like a dating period. I figure out if you’re going to actually
22:31
cut it or not. And I try not to bring anyone on as an intern that I’m not going to have a a runner position for.
22:37
Um then it’s the runner, then you become an assistant engineer, and then my goal is that you become a first engineer and
22:43
you launch and you come. So I’m secretly just creating a factory of my future clients.
22:52
It’s not happening in here. It’s happening out there. It’s It’s right brain versus left brain. Yeah. And I’m doing music.
22:59
There’s no technology in what I’m doing except this board. And I’ve been doing this board long enough. It’s just
23:04
instrument. Yeah. Second nature. And I had one guy sitting me watching me
23:10
set up a limiter on here. And he’s sitting at ProTools and he said, “I know the algorithm for everything you’ve got in here. I’ve got
23:16
all of this.” And I said, “No, you have a picture of it.” But he said, he said, “Well, I’m I’m doing this and I know the
23:23
algorithms for how this is set and you’re sitting here adjusting this with your head turned toward the speakers.
23:29
You’re not even looking at it. What are you doing?” I said, “Something’s really rare. I’m listening.
23:35
It’s an art that’s lost.” Capturing the lightning and bottle. How
23:41
do you capture that? that you know because you go to see a let’s say a rock band and you see him live and there’s
23:47
such energy on stage. How do you get that? Well, that’s where I can help. I know I can help because I
23:53
can set you up like you’re on stage. I can give you all headphones or let’s just use wedges. Why don’t we just
23:59
record live? You know, there’s all kinds of ways to skin this cat. So, you know, whatever is works best for you, but
24:06
we’re going to capture that live feeling. And then even if we replace everything but the drums, the drums are
24:13
still going to have that energy of a live performance, which you don’t get if you’re just playing to a click.
24:19
Agreed. Do what you do. If it’s good enough, you’ll get there. If it isn’t, you
24:25
won’t. The thought here is you’ve got to be
24:31
competent and you have to be excellent at what you do, no matter what age you are, but especially when you’re younger.
24:40
In hindsight, I wish I’d been a little bit more of a slower upward slope of my
24:46
goal setting so that I wouldn’t stress so severely because when you set these
24:52
really high goals, your stress level is up there, too. And and when you don’t hit that mark, you feel like a failure.
25:03
Punk is what set me free. Before that, I was like a piano player. I’m playing jazz. I’m like only gonna play like
25:10
important music. Punk was permission to be bad. Yes, it was. It was permission. It was
25:16
also permission to not give a [ __ ] Yes. You know, to go [ __ ] you if you don’t like it. Go away then.
25:22
Exactly. I’m relieved of the of the necessity of being great. That basically released me
25:29
into being a performer, which released me into becoming this iteration of myself.
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basically gave you a lot more control in the mix. Um, have you having more tracks, having
25:43
more separation, but it also gave you more options which could sometimes be almost, you know,
25:48
almost almost a problem in a way, right? Which, you know, I mean, it was for me when I first first started
25:55
um when when there was just too too much information and too many ways to go.
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I’ve also at the same time over the years tried to learn how to not make things so like individual, you know,
26:08
where you can hear everything. Some some records need things to be sort of kind of mushed together for it to
26:16
work, you know. So, sure. Um, I mean Ed Churnney had going back to Ed, he had this story he would
26:24
tell about working with uh Bob Dylan and he said he’d been mixing on this song
26:29
all day long and he was like finally feeling really good about it and um
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Dylan comes in, sits down at the console and pushes play on the remote and is listening for a while and reaches back
26:41
over and hits stop and he looks at Eddie. He goes, “Eddie, it’s all [ __ ]
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up. I can hear everything.
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He didn’t want it to be like, you know, he’s like, “So, the stuff you do with
26:59
the remix is like, could you do that in this kind of studio?” I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” I said, “I have crap for
27:05
gear. I have like an Alisa 16 channel board. You got like, you know,” and he and I said, “No, no. The the work you’re
27:10
doing, could you come here and do it in this in this room?” And I was like, “Are
27:15
you offering me a job?” and he goes, “Yeah, I guess.” You know, would you want to come out here and work? I’m at
27:20
Georgia’s place for like 2 or 3 days. And and just kind of like, I don’t even know what I’m doing here. Imposter
27:25
syndrome. I’ve lied my way into this job. Now, what do I do? He just suddenly goes, I forgot I was going to Italy for
27:32
a thing and I’ll be back in 3 weeks. So, we’ll have the the the housekeeper like
27:37
make a place you can sleep in. And so basically gave me the keys to his mansion after not knowing me and then
27:44
leaves for three for 3 weeks. Like you say, teaching and learning are
27:54
two sides of the same process and creativity especially when the teaching and learning is about the creative
27:59
process. Um and creativity is something that no one person does. Um we all do
28:06
it. You know, anybody who’s ever played in the band knows that the joint
28:11
creativity that happens, especially in the improvising uh bands um in the
28:16
moment is the most exciting. Yeah, it’s it’s all about human interaction. It’s
28:23
all about um working together. I remembered one of my engineers had
28:29
said that his father um had had a taco cart down at MacArthur Park and he said
28:35
that his dad used to look up at the buildings around and all the office buildings and he used to say, “I would
28:41
rather own this taco cart than work for any of those [ __ ] up there.” I was in traffic school a little while back
28:47
and I had this I was just really mad to be there. I was frustrated and I was just like and I and then I I thought I I
28:54
couldn’t remember the last time I was somewhere I didn’t want to be. I just could not remember and I thought well that’s a pretty wonderful life right
29:00
there. I think that no matter what you do, you have to
29:07
follow your passion in terms of the goal that you’ve set for yourself. But you
29:15
need a goal and and and you need to know that there’s a process that you have to go
29:20
through to get there. It’s not immediate. There there’s too many folks think immediate gratification
29:27
is what they need, but it’s enjoying the process. Nothing’s perfect. It’s never going to be perfect. Even when great
29:35
success happens, it’s not perfect. There’s always some sort of challenge in
29:40
there. I would say just follow your passion and and and and prepare
29:46
yourself. Be prepared. Study and be open to change because something may come
29:51
along that would be a better um direction to go in.
29:58
The public is smart. They’re damn smart. They’re smart
30:04
about understanding what
30:09
music’s main function is. Those of us who are artists and estates
30:16
when it comes to music, we’ve got this golden notion of what music can do, what
30:24
it can be. We know about the Jimmyi Hendrises of the world. We know about the Alphus Geralds. We know how great
30:31
music can be. The general public will often say, “Uh, yeah, but
30:38
that’s not what we need. What we need is music that works for us and that’s valid
30:46
and it’s important and it’s a big component of what music is.”
30:52
You know, it’s something else that I learned from my father and I I would watch him sort of agonize. Why can’t I
31:01
be writing uh or why can’t I be, you know, publishing this thing or putting it together? Um and and I realized that
31:07
the real work that he was doing was when he was sitting in a chair staring into space and the actual writing was the
31:13
memorialization, the the the writing down of the solution. And I think uh it it’s the
31:19
same with art and music and and record production, which is the actual knob
31:25
twiddling and the doing. It seemed like that would be what’s what the process is, setting up microphones or moving
31:30
knobs and so those sort of things, but really that’s just the expression of the
31:35
message that you’ve derived or or the the image that that you and the people you’re working with have conjured and
31:42
that and that’s just the sort of conjuring it into into reality.
31:48
I really believe that AI has the ability to be my eyes or to be somebody else’s
31:55
hands. So now we’re talking about ways that AI can enhance humanity rather than
32:00
the lite kind of idea of replacing humanity, right? Yeah. Exactly. And so cuz cuz look, as a as a music
32:06
creative, and I know this is not our mandate today to talk about this, but I am all I am not for uh AI creating
32:11
music. I’m I’m not I mean I’m a humanist. I want I want to be in control of the art form. If we could have a a a
32:17
virtual assistant and I could say, “Hey, computer. Um, I want to insert the uh
32:25
Fairchild compressor plugin on track 17. Here’s the ratio I want. Here’s the
32:32
threshold. Uh, here’s the the the gain adjustment, you know, and and then and
32:37
then that is done for me rather than me trying to have to get something to tell me what’s on the screen.
32:44
It’s a tough lesson to learn. At my early stages was the multiple hats
32:51
thing. So my thing was not just an audio guy. It was tour manager slashp
32:58
production manager, right? Trying to keep the train going
33:03
and keep cats out of jail. Serious times where it’s like, okay,
33:08
I’ve got to advance this. I’ve got to do this. I have to be the adult in the room. I have to be the adult in the room. I
33:14
have to, you know, okay, I got to interact with the the driver cuz the driver’s ready to kick everybody off the
33:20
bus. Yep. You know, and I’m trying to control that, but I’m trying to be the the the bro, but I’m also having to
33:27
be the dad, you know? And I’m like,
33:32
sometimes when you’re on the road, you don’t know what’s going on through that person’s. Like, they might have family
33:37
issues. They might have health issues that you don’t know. So they might have other issues you don’t know. But my
33:44
thing is if you don’t talk about it, you can’t solve the issue or the problem. So
33:50
just tell people don’t talk to me. But I’m not a therapist. But I don’t have kids. And I was telling the students
33:56
today I don’t have kids because I take care of kids on the road. I don’t take care of kids. So I have the the same
34:04
issues with my kids on the road. They do have to travel from see me because it’s
34:10
always the same thing. I’m hungry. I’m tired. PE after. Why are we going there?
34:15
Why are we doing this? Why? So, just don’t talk to me. We can
34:20
figure it out. I used to always joke about that with
34:25
people. It’s like, you know, the rock stars have stories, but we have the stories about the rock stars,
34:31
right? You know, well, we’re we’re the first row of the audience, you know? I mean it it that’s
34:37
something uh that you that you learn coming in is that you’re not in the
34:42
band. You’re not in the you’re going to be confused maybe at times because you’re going to be sitting next to each
34:48
other at dinner or on a plane or maybe even in the same hotel
34:53
and maybe you’re going to think for a moment you’re in the band. You’re in you’re not in the band the same bus with them. Yeah.
34:58
Right. Yeah. But you’re not in the band. You uh you do though have a front row
35:04
seat to this amazing group of people that are called the band and the
35:09
entertainment that they supply both musically and as the colorful characters
35:15
that sometimes they end up being like monitors. You got to strip your ego
35:21
away because it’s not about you. It’s not about your mix. It’s about whatever
35:26
those people on stage need that day, right? Yeah. In front of house, you just kind of need
35:32
an ego cuz you’re putting out everything to everyone and to management and wives
35:39
and husbands and everybody has an opinion, right?
35:44
We’ve all been in a situation where we said we know how to do something and you better learn how to do it the night before. You know, it’s a great
35:51
motivator. Fear is a fantastic motivator. Fear of failure is an even
35:56
more fantastic motivator, at least in my career. You got to be able to take the
36:02
negativity and turn it into something positive to really transform that energy into what is actually going to get you
36:08
from point A to point B. It’s fun for the musicians, too. Sure.
36:14
Of course. You know, Post Malone comes into the tiny desk with his big pretty big band
36:20
like um and uh you know, they had to sort of like
36:26
figure out how to do it without monitors and maybe they rehearsed in their hotel room or whatever, but
36:32
I think they had such a sense of joy coming and trying something different, new after being on tour for however many
36:39
months and having all that tech, you know, with you every night to make your
36:45
job possible. Just to like kind of toss it all aside, cram into the corner.
36:50
Yeah. Cram into a corner of an office and get back down to just like the bare
36:56
necessity and and see if they could pull it off and and they did.
37:03
you know, you learn from great people and um and I’ve just been so fortunate
37:08
to just work with many very many very many cool people and I’ve come up a few ideas myself and that’s few tricks
37:14
myself but yeah that’s where that came from. that was, you know, there’s one thing that that
37:20
seems to be sort of a common thread is that you said yes a lot, you know, or
37:25
maybe you just said what the hell, I don’t know, but you basically you were you were ready, you were open to pretty
37:31
much doing whatever got thrown at you. I think that comes from the days when I used to, you know, I used to ride
37:36
motorcycles from an early age, scream up and down alleys and things and tear up, you know, from the age of whatever.
37:43
So, you’re saying you were a troubled youth? I I I was a bit of a lunatic on a motorcycle and still am and I nearly
37:49
killed myself several times. But what somebody said to me said, uh I don’t know who it was just recently. They said
37:55
cuz you go into it. He said you he said you go into it no fear. You just go it’s got to be done
38:02
and you deal with it and you apply all the experience that you’ve you’ve taken along the journey and you just sort it
38:09
out. I don’t go there and go like, “Oh, I’m going to, you know, what am I going to do here?” and panic a little bit or
38:14
get a little bit starruck or whatever. I think they’d rather have someone
38:19
really passionate about what they’re about to start doing, who’s going to get better than someone
38:26
who doesn’t think they’re an impostor and who thinks they’re amazing and probably doesn’t do a good job
38:33
and doesn’t know what they don’t know. Yeah, exactly. Think I mean, by thinking you know everything, you you really don’t. I mean, you know, do I know, you
38:41
know, it’s funny because, you know, I’m sure you’ve heard the same thing. I’ll take people on tours here and do you
38:46
know what every one of those buttons does will be the question. Sometimes I kind of think twice about that. Do I really know what all those
38:51
buttons do? And yeah, I do, but there’s a certain combination of attack and release that I might not know that it
38:57
does. I might not know what it all does. Somebody asked me that one time and I said, “Yeah, I’ll accept this one right
39:02
here. I’m going to use that definitely.
39:08
I would say not be afraid cuz I was afraid still. Yeah. Do you think it held you back?
39:14
Oh, very much so. Afraid of the technology. Yes. Uh-huh.
39:20
You know, but again, I could not learn. I didn’t know how to learn.
39:26
Uh-huh. I think learning knowing how to learn is a huge asset.
39:34
And to point out like imposttor syndrome in the beginning I didn’t choose piano
39:41
because that’s what dad plays. That’s just what was proper to start on. When I
39:46
made my first choice away from piano I felt somehow less pressure about my
39:53
dad being a a worldass pianist. Uh-huh.
39:59
And then when I started being interested in drums driven music, it didn’t feel like
40:07
I was in the wrong place or doing the wrong thing or like maybe this isn’t for me or like I’m in a family of musicians
40:13
so I have to do this. I felt like I was in the right place, doing the right thing.
40:21
As much as you try to not let guys and falling and I always tell these girls
40:28
too. I said the hardest thing about being women in this business is not falling in love with rock stars or the
40:35
like, you know, and the people around them because and then you get sides. I
40:40
always I didn’t want to get pulled out or I I probably could have been better at that. And that’s why I tried more
40:48
moreover to keep things professional, you know, because I figured I want to last in this business, you know, and and
40:56
you know, I don’t want to create a lot of drama around myself. So,
41:02
the singer came to me and he said, “Man, I just I’ve never been happy with this
41:08
lead vocal. It’s too good. it’s too correct. And so I asked him, “Well, when
41:15
were you happy with your vocal?” And he goes, “Well, the demo.” And I says, “Well, how’d you record the demo?” And
41:21
he goes, “Well, I do those in my kitchen after I put the kids to bed on my pora studio.” And I just sing, you know, on
41:29
the kitchen table. And I says, “Well, that’s where we need the lead vocal.” Yeah. Where’s the porta studio? I took
41:34
uh a cassette and I put a mono mix without, you know, a headphone track on
41:40
track four. Uhhuh. Track three was time code. Track two was blank. And track one was his. And I
41:47
said, “Take it home, listen to the to the to the mix and record on track one
41:53
so there’s no leakage from time code and just go do a vocal and bring me the cassette.” And then we locked up to the
42:00
cassette and transferred the vocal and he had his kitchen. He believed every word. So did I.
42:08
And as you referenced earlier, our job, the subjectivity
42:14
of music, one person’s going to love this song, another person hates that song. So you
42:22
kind of have to do what you do. And if you like what I do, we’re going
42:28
to have a great time. And if you and I think totally different, then you’re
42:33
going to fire me and I’m going to try not to take it personally and get on with life.
42:41
Same things apply, though. Just, you know, don’t be an [ __ ] you know, get
42:48
as good as you can get on your instrument, you know, and play with a lot of people, you know, and keep saying
42:55
yes. I mean it’s still the same make it’s really important to just stay
43:01
focused on it sounds super cliche but stay focused
43:08
on what it means to be good and how that manifests in the world and
43:15
how uh how you treat other people uh and how you uh how you value your own
43:21
integrity, how you value others and facilitate
43:29
collaborations that are meaningful between people. Like all of that is
43:34
what’s important. It’s not necessarily important what you do. It’s so important
43:40
how you do it. The things that are really important that will define your experience of success are the
43:47
connections that you make with other human beings and your ability to move through the world in a way that helps
43:54
other people.